Calling USA – help us achieve our ColaLife Christmas Challenge!

ColaLife has supporters all over the world – not least in the USA – and we’d like to invite YOU to help us launch our strategy to co-fund the distribution of AidPods in Africa.

Can you help us raise a total of $5000 from 40 different donors in 30 days?

We’ve just been accepted onto the US Global Giving funding platform for their Winter Challenge – with several offers to match-fund what we raise – depending how well we do! For example, all donations received on 4 December (EST) will be increased by 30% by Global Giving.

UK donors are of course very welcome too! You can help contribute to the challenge if you have PayPal, or if you prefer, give via UK Charity Giving (to get UK GiftAid if you are a UK tax payer). Completing the challenge will also assure ColaLife a permanent place on the USA Global Giving site, and give us access to the UK sister site too.

Why this request – and why now?Our first trial – COTZ – is underway in Zambia, so we know how excited shop keepers are about travelling into the district town to bring back this new commodity into their community. They improve their livelihoods, with a small profit on each Kit sold, and they are improving their skills in simple health knowledge, in places where pharmacies can’t be found and the health centre can be many hours’ walk away. And we know now how popular the Kit Yamoyo AidPods are with mothers in rural areas – and how they appreciate having easy-to-understand, life-saving medicines close by the home.

But we also know, that for the next year or so, whilst we work to bring down the cost of production, each Kit needs a co-funder – at around $1 per Kit Yamoyo. We are working to reduce the need for co-funding altogether in the longer term as we scale up.

Our model has to create a desirable, high quality product, yet still be affordable – leaving room for shop-keepers and wholesalers to make a small profit out of every Kit Yamoyo they sell. That’s how Coca-Cola gets there, and that’s the model we’re building on. And we’ve seen the potential for economies of scale, localising production of the Kit in the developing country and other efficiencies.

The AidPod Fund will bridge this cost/price gap – and the gap between the end of the COTZ trial and the roll out by local partners in Zambia. So, please join our Christmas Challenge and launch our AidPod Fund!